Students who are against the recreation center student self-assessed fee can stop by the Student Union to sign a petition to resend the fee. Five Student Government Association Senators who are acting independently of the organization are passing around this petition.
In order for this petition to go through, these students must have 365 signatures for the petition to by-pass the SGA and go straight to Donald Ayo, university president. From there, the petitions would go to the Board of regents for approval to be placed on the ballot.
Recalling referendum will be stated as follows: “Do you favor the removal of the recreation center fee as a student self-assessed fee?” Those in favor of removing the fee would check yes
Quoc Ho, finance junior from Biloxi, Miss. and business senator, said this endeavor was brought about by a casual conversation between him and other senators. None of this dialogue took place within an SGA meeting.
Ho said this was brought up based on the fact that Nicholls is an 80 to 90 percent commuter school, and he felt that the voting on the recreation center was unfair.
“Most students live 20 to 45 minutes away and the recreation center would only be facilitated for its convenience to those students who live on campus,” Ho said.
To explain the mentality behind the reasons for the petitions Ho quoted Albert Einstein. “Not everything that can be counted counts and not every thing that counts can be counted.”
Ho said the time re-election was held was one day before the storm.
“Time prioritizes itself in that situation. There were students who knew they had to vote, but boarding up their homes and taking care of their families was more important at the time,” he said.
Another reason for the petitions besides the storm is the fact that the recreation center was turned down once before.
“Last year the students voted the recreation center down, and they did it with good reasons. A lot of students do not have the money for it,” Ho said.
Students think the SGA senate is responsible for the recreation center passing since the senators were the ones who voted to put it back on the ballot, Ho said. He also agrees with those students who tried to appeal the final voting tally.
“The judicial board followed all of the rules and they are going forth on this issue with the justification that they did it all constitutionally. They should have been more considerate for the commuter students and their particular situation when justifying the rescheduled date of election,” he said.
“It is unfair on the part that there was a recreation center display showing all of the good things about the center; this made it more appealing to the students. However, there were no stipulations about it and the only place where the fee was explained on that day was on the ballot itself, and not many people take the time to read the fine print.”
In the fine print it states that the students will be able to receive admission to the facility, after it is built, in the form of using the center for the same amount of time that they paid for it. (If you pay for three semesters and never get to use the center, you can use it after it is built for three semesters.) Ho said the students he has talked to say they will be pursuing other objectives pertaining to their career and some will no longer be in town to use the facility.
Ho said he realizes that the recreation center would bring Nicholls up to par with the other universities, but that there is no capacity to do such a thing on campus.
“What it all boils down to is we are all watching out for our pocket books, just like the university looks out for their expenditures. This is being done to benefit the university at the cost of the students, and I do not agree with that,” Ho said.
Ho said he would request that the petition not be taken lightly.
“If the petition is fulfilled to its requirements I ask that those who are reviewing the petition treat it as equally as any other petition that has come up,” he said.